Introduction

With the help of this website, I will discuss twinhood in general and especially the phenomenon of twin language, called Cryptophasia. This invented "language" is mainly spoken by twins in kindergarten age, however also siblings are described to use it. Cryptophasia is associated with the term Idioglossia as well, which is more generally used for autonomous languages that are employed by a small community (siblings or families). Cryptophasia, however, is the term that is exclusively used in connection with twins.

There are about 125 million twins worldwide and approximately 3 million twins are newly born every year [INT 5]. In comparison to 1983 there were only 40-50 million twins (Friedrich 5), which might be due to an increase of the population since then. In Germany we have 800.000 twins and in Great Britain 700.000. In Africa there is the highest rate of twin births every year; it is two times higher than in Europe and almost three times higher than in Asia. 41% of all twins are born in Africa, which mainly has to do with the high birth rate there. However, this also has an effect on the health status in Africa, since almost half of the children are dying before they are turning one year old, and the risk of death during birth is three to four times higher than during the birth of a single child [INT 5]. Although the population of twins is growing, twins are still quite rare compared to all the inhabitants worldwide. There are 7,1 billion people living on this world, which means only 3,5% of all inhabitants are twins [INT 1]. In Germany and Great Britain it is only 1% [INT 1]. So twins are a rarity in the world and this fact creates an even more fascinating ambiguity about their "own language".

Since the phenomenon of Cryptophasia has to do with language acquisition, the question of language developement in twins, and children in general, will be answered as well as environmental and genetic factors, which influence the aquisition of speech. And I also will discuss in how far language acquisition of twins differs from the norm. Several studies were also trying to "determine how biology and environment influence the language development of twins" (Koch 58), that will be decribed in nature and nurture of twins. Furthermore, I will give general information about twins, like a definition of twins, stereotypical facts and historical facts (myths and legends) about them. I even did a little survey myself, which should provide some additional information, data and results about my findings of twin-language. The biggest part will be about Cryptophasia itself, where I will discuss its actual existence. Its existence, because there are diverse attempts to explain this rare language occurrence and it is still not scientifically proven if this autonomous language of twins is an actual language, or rather some kind of baby talk or language impaired gibberish. My findings will be discussed in the conclusion part of this website.

This video shows a little documentary about twins, which gives an impression about the advantages and disadvantages of being an identical twin. Furthermore, there is already something mentioned about "Twin-Talk". If you are interested in this: